A mother who was slow to pay school fees ended up with a bill from lawyers that was more than her initial debt.
Maria Mogotsih works as a domestic worker in Johannesburg and is responsible for the education of seven children – her own five plus two of her deceased brother’s children. While Mogotsi is determined that all seven should get a decent education, the total monthly school-fees bill takes a huge chunk of her salary.
Mogotsi found herself even deeper in debt in February this year. Having finally paid off the outstanding R400 that she owed in fees for two of her children at Tshukudu High School in Thekwane village in North West, she received a series of legal bills from Van Velden-Duffy Incorporated (VVDI), based in Rustenburg. With interest and other charges, Mgotosi ended up parting with about R1 000 in lawyers’ fees.
Mogotsi is one of 352 parents and caregivers, more than half of the parent body, from Tshukudu High whose outstanding fees were referred to VVDI to collect on behalf of the school.
“I do not understand what this money is for. As far as I am concerned I do not owe anything. I am really confused,” Mogotsi says. She adds that most parents who have received bills from the lawyers are poor and illiterate.
Mogotsi also insists that she was not aware of the possibility of negotiating a fees exemption – a legal requirement before schools can involved lawyers in recovering school fees from parents.
She feels that principal Stephen Rakgomo is heavy-handed about fees. “He is unsympathetic to our situations and only too keen to collect the money.” She claims that Rakgomo even threatened to confiscate and sell assets of parents who have not paid school fees.
But Rakgomo has a different story: “We send notices to parents who are behind with school-fee payments, and if there is no response after a second notice, we then send their cases to our lawyers.” He says that since Tshukudu High started using VVDI “80% of our parents have already paid their school fees and this brought about R53 000 into our school coffers”. This is compared with the average of about 30% of parents who paid fees in previous years.
Brian Ramadiro of the Education Rights Project (ERP) says that he receives complaints from parents or caregivers with similar problems. He blames the situation on the “most obvious weakness” in the current policy regulating school-fee exemptions, which “expects public schools to grant school-fees exemptions but makes no provision for schools to recover revenue they lose by granting (these) exemptions”.
But while Mogotsi and other parents struggle with this additional debt, VVDI is raking in good business. Director Volker Kruger says the firm provides debt-collecting services to 20 other schools in the area. Says Kruger: “The schools would normally approach us for assistance, but there are cases where we have contacted schools that we know have a problem with outstanding school fees.”
Like Rakgomo, Kruger maintains that these parents have been informed of the fee-exemption option. He adds, “If we realise that the parents cannot afford to pay and do not have any attachable assets after a thorough investigation, we would close our file and inform the school accordingly.”
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s budget speech last month once again recognised the very real problem of school fees: “The door of learning often closes in the face of parents who cannot pay school fees or the associated costs of schooling.” She noted: “Poor parents’ property is seized; school governing bodies refuse to assist parents who are entitled to a fee exemption.”
While Pandor promised a range of changes – including no-fee schools – from next year, in the meantime Mogotsi and others like her will have to keep battling on.
hParent’s name has been changed because she feared victimisation
Fast facts
These are some of the proposed changes to the regulations for fee exemptions:
The exemption formula will take into account the total amount of school fees parents pay, not just the fees at that school;
Parents who are unable to pay may do so in kind;
School fees will be abolished at some schools serving the poorest communities.
Critics have responded that:
The policy does not give schools incentives when they grant exemptions to parents because the state does not provide financial compensation;
The formula and procedures are complicated and will be difficult for schools to administer;
Paying in kind is a system easily open to abuse and could result in parents having to “parade their poverty” to the school community.